Nov. 2022 (Issue 150)

We have original science fiction by Tania Fordwalker (“Beyond the Shore”) and Ben H. Winters (“Double Occupancy”). We also have a flash piece (“Therefore What the Multiverse has Joined Together, Let No One Separate”) from Dominica Phetteplace, along with an SF reprint by Tobias S. Buckell (“The Blindfold”). Plus, we have original fantasy by Alex Irvine (“The Dragon’s Hand”) and Kristina Ten (“The Noon Witch Goes to Sound Planet”). We also have a flash piece (“What If the Whole Camp of Kids Learned How To Liquefy?”) from Maria Kelson. Our fantasy reprint is by Yoon Ha Lee (“The Graphology of Hemorrhage”). All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. Our ebook readers will also enjoy a book excerpt from Everina Maxwell’s new novel Ocean’s Echo.

Cover art by Roman3d

Nov. 2022 (Issue 150)

Editorial

Editorial: November 2022

by John Joseph Adams

Be sure to check out the editorial for a run-down of this month’s terrific content.

Science Fiction

Beyond the Shore

by Tania Fordwalker

Author spotlight

Nobody noticed the first few. They walked. One by one, in the beginning. Isolated instances. On every continent, mid-meal, mid-shower, mid-work, mid-fuck, right out the door of a pulled-up car in the middle of a freeway—ordinary people turned their backs on their ordinary lives and walked. They walked, shedding their hair in clumps along the way, sloughing their skin in translucent sheets to reveal pale grey beneath. On bleeding feet they walked down highways and lanes and trails, unerringly taking the path of least resistance to the nearest coast. They crossed the sand. The sea cooled their aching calves. Still, they walked.

Fantasy

What If the Whole Camp of Kids Learned How To Liquefy?

by Maria Kelson

When she melts, it’s like a balloon collapsing, but fast. Her body turns to an inky puddle, a pool of shadow. Then, in a snap, she goes clear. Shimmering. When all the other children are asleep, when the guard is looking at something else, when the camera eye is on something else. That’s when this happens. When she becomes a shadow, then a shimmer, and slithers out from under her thin silver blanket, onto the ground. She can slide, fast fast, between gray sleep mats with kids snoring, gray sleep mats with kids crying, she can slide past a gray sleep mat where one boy pulls up the corner to bang his head on the concrete floor.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Tania Fordwalker

by Laurel Amberdine

In stories like this one, particularly when the central conflict is built around a pandemic or climate change, happy endings often come in the form of restoring the status quo—we win by overcoming the new threat and setting things back the way they were. In reality, this thinking doesn’t work for climate change because “the way things were” is what got us into this mess in the first place. The only way we win now is by embracing radical change: in ourselves, our behaviour and our society. I wanted to write a story that made the metaphor literal.

Fantasy

The Blindfold

by Tobias S. Buckell

I’ve got a mother that wants to get in on a long-term financing agreement to change her son’s race for a trial, Ecstasy pings you. His court date is coming up; the hearing for the random race generator is next Thursday. Thursday. That doesn’t leave a lot of time. But, then, that’s why E is pinging you. They’re paying in cryptocurrency, Ecstasy says. My commission is the usual 10 percent. They’ve already set up the chain; you just need to agree to be on the other side. Local judicial computer systems have shit security. It’s always been the case.

Fantasy

The Dragon’s Hand

by Alex Irvine

Author spotlight

A boy traveling alone was beset by bandits on the outskirts of a strange town at sunset. They left him stripped and bloody in a ditch by the side of the road in the deepening dusk, as a bright full moon appeared over the trees. The boy watched it moving across the sky, his pain and shame a kind of trance. For a long time nothing happened. When he heard footsteps on the road, he was afraid, but something was broken inside him and he dared not disturb it by moving. Still he looked up at the moon, filling himself with its light. He felt a distance growing between himself and his body. The traveler’s steps paused.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Alex Irvine

by Laurel Amberdine

The germ of this story was a little flight of fancy I had one day, involving a young dragon that went into a cave and then grew so much that it couldn’t get out. Then I realized it fit into a series of stories I’ve been writing off and on for (eek) fifteen years now. This is the fourth to be published, after “Wizard’s Six,” “Dragon’s Teeth,” and “Chisel and Chime.” Several more are in progress. The twin guideposts for all of them are Earthsea and Viriconium.

Nonfiction

Book Review: Liar, Dreamer, Thief, by Maria Dong

by Aigner Loren Wilson

Are you looking for a fantasy for people who like mysteries and a mystery for people who love fantasy? Then Maria Dong’s new novel Liar, Dreamer, Thief might just be for you!

Science Fiction

Double Occupancy

by Ben H. Winters

Author spotlight

“This is a disaster!” “What?” “This is an absolute disaster!” “Did you say something?” Jessica Martin closed her laptop and put her head in her hands. Her old friend Todd, who was in her big bean chair in the corner, watching a movie on his phone, took out his earbuds. “What is it, dude? It’s not working?” “Oh, it’s working,” she said. She stared angrily at her invention, which stood in the middle of her room, the size and shape of a refrigerator. It was, in fact, her family’s old refrigerator, which she had stripped down and rebuilt. “It is working, Todd. It’s working perfectly. That is the problem.”

Fantasy

The Graphology of Hemorrhage

by Yoon Ha Lee

Rao Nawong, aide to Magician Tepwe Kodai, had not been on the hillside for long with her. The sky threatened rain on and off, and the air smelled of river poetry, of lakes with their scarves of reeds. Water would make their mission here, in the distant shadow of the Spiders’ fortress, more difficult, if not outright impossible. The Empire’s defeat of the upstart Spiders, whose rebellion had sparked a general conflagration in the southwest provinces, depended on the mission’s success. At the moment, Nawong found it hard to care. His world had narrowed to Kodai’s immediate needs, politics be damned.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Ben H. Winters

by Laurel Amberdine

I love time travel stories, and I always have. Not just time travel stories, but time-bending stories, time-jumping stories, any kind of time-futzing, I’m there for it. The novel I’m writing now is called Big Time. It’s a time-manipulation piece, and it had me doing a lot of research on theories and mechanisms of time travel. I think this story came from that work. So it’s a bit of a subsidiary to the novel I’m working on—although it’s a very, very different piece, both in plot and tone. In terms of inspiration, Back To The Future is an obvious one; anything where you’ve got a hero, especially a self-confident, clever kid, traveling through time, you’re in BTTF territory.

Nonfiction

Book Review: Tomorrow’s Parties, edited by Jonathan Strahan

by Arley Sorg

If the word “anthropocene” elicits immediate feelings of gloom and doom, this new SF anthology is a good antidote. Let reviewer Arley Sorg tell you all about it!

Science Fiction

Therefore What the Multiverse Has Joined Together, Let No One Separate

by Dominica Phetteplace

Dear Next, You’ve seen the original picture. If you’re anything like me, you know it by heart. The image that came out of the first (and at the time of this writing, only) discovered white hole was a flower. It was gray and pixelated, but it was beautiful. When it was finished, I was invited to the vault to view the flower. Not because I was anyone important. I mean, I had millions of followers on social media, my content regularly went viral, and I had written a dozen best-selling books. But to the scientific community, I was a personality. An influencer. Not serious. Not like Yxa.

Fantasy

The Noon Witch Goes to Sound Planet

by Kristina Ten

Author spotlight

The Noon Witch is not a cat person. She likes the color purple, hates police procedurals, loves breakfast foods, thinks scented bath products and anchovy pizza are gross. Hates platform shoes. Hates walnuts in brownies. Used to like the electropop group all the girls at school like, until they used too much synth on their latest album, so now she hates them too. The Noon Witch isn’t an overcritical person. She’s just at that difficult age when you’re desperate to figure out who you are, so you lean too much on your likes and dislikes to try to cobble together what you think should be your personality.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Kristina Ten

by Laurel Amberdine

I’ve seen lots of Baba Yaga retellings and modernizations—and don’t get me wrong, the old witch is fascinating, deserving of every ounce of attention she gets. For this story, though, I wanted to cast one of the figures of Slavic folklore I don’t see revisited nearly as often: Poludnitsa (also known as the Noon Witch, or Lady Midday). Pulling from my own experiences, I threw in some teenage angst, some intergenerational dissonance, and a Burning Man–esque desert setting that’s going to be make or break for our modern Noon Witch.

Nonfiction

Book Review: Poster Girl, by Veronica Roth

by Chris Kluwe

If you’ve been thinking about how Big Brother is probably watching you, then you might want to check out Poster Girl, a new SF novel from Veronica Roth.